Talking on the phone

 

The Man with the Radios
Collected in: The Town of No

 



Beyond the curtainless
bay window of his house
on the side street,

 

he kneels
among old radios, left
from a time of belief
in radios,
some dangling fat
tails of cord

 

from end tables, some
in darkening corners
sprouting hairs of wire

 

from their great backs,
and this strange one
he has chosen,

 

standing on the paws

of an African cat.
The man with the radios

 

is so far away
in his gaze you would swear
he sees nothing,


so still you might miss
how he concentrates
on not moving

 

his hand. Slowly,
slowly he turns
its ridged

 

knob in the dark,
listening for the sound
he has prepared it for,

 

watching with his absent eyes
the film that clears
from a green eye.

 

 



Photograph: Thrift Store Radio, Biddeford, Maine